Are info dumps required for world building? (OPINION)

[Anon2024]

I’ve noticed info dumps in more and more works (especially online) and I’m wondering if they’re required for world building.

I personally think info dumps take away the mystery of a story setting and often even the plot, characters and story itself.

Often they don’t take the reader into account. Why does the reader want to know about the world if they don’t give a damn about the plot or characters?

Even question and answer sessions are annoying because most of them feel unnatural, out of the action. It’s like someone telling you about a conversation they had instead of getting to the point of the information.

“I asked, then they said, blah blah blah.”

I mean, seriously. Info dumps are just lazy, low effort ways to tell the reader “yo foo, dis muh world and it’s important!”

-_-

Well, this is my opinion. Change my mind.

 

[SailusGebel]

-_-

Yes.

 

[MrPopocap]

-_-

Yes

 

[DiscoDream]

I've been tempted to put infodumps in one of the stories I've written, because too many people complained about wanting to know what was happening in other parts of the world. I had no natural way to tell them in the story, since the rest of the world was not the focus. Might just be author's trying to appeal to as many people as possible. :/

Though I just deleted my story, so maybe my example is mute

 

[Yairy]

Heck no!

 

[Chaos_Sinner777]

Technically no, but it's a slow process if you don't.

 

[Empyrea]

Technically, aren't all novels just info dumps? It's just a matter of how long the dumping takes.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Infodumps are needed.
The catch is to present them as if they aren't dumps...

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Infodumps aren't required at all. In fact, it is considered lazy and shows poor writing skills. Yes, infodumps will happen from time to time and aren't always bad but most of the time, the people who use them the most, can't figure out how to write them in a compelling way so it always sounds like a boring one-sided conversation. With webnovels especially, infodumps are becoming more and more common because of how quickly it allows for the author to flesh out their world without having to find interesting and rewarding ways to flesh it out. Most written accounts of folk tales and legends would have infodumps but it was mainly in the prologue as the stories commonly shared timelines and settings as other spoken legends that give more context to the characters and world. Take the legends of the round table and its knights as an example.

Traditional publishing frowns on info dumping highly while most teens and children are being introduced to webnovels that have extremely quick (too quick for most) pacing and don't realize what they are missing out on. That said, webnovels have release schedules and have to keep up with the readers and their attention spans so it would make sense for the author to skimp on fully fleshing out their world to save time. I don't mind this because it makes sense, however, when putting it into print, the author (or an editor) should try to flesh those infodump sections out so that it can be a more enjoyable experience after the person pays more money for a physical copy.

 

[beast_regards]

No.
World-building is technically all that invisible leg-work you did behind the scenes in order to make the setting consistent, not the actual part of the story. (unless you are creating the homebrew setting for Table Top RPG, then the story is up to someone else)
However, many people want to show all the leg-work they had to do immediately and be appreciated for it, instead of relying on readers to go through the entire story and remember, and then appreciate you afterwards. So you get info dumps. It's kinda the immediate vs. delayed gratification thing.
But since webnovels are intended to be endless, published for weeks, months, even years if you have dedication and active fandom, there is no guarantee that reader will remember the hints from the previous chapter as they are reading far more stories that just yours. You usually don't have luxury of the conventional, traditionally published novels, where readers stick to the end and more importantly, give your story an undivided attention.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

No.
World-building is technically all that invisible leg-work you did behind the scenes in order to make the setting consistent, not the actual part of the story. (unless you are creating the homebrew setting for Table Top RPG, then the story is up to someone else)
However, many people want to show all the leg-work they had to do immediately and be appreciated for it, instead of relying on readers to go through the entire story and remember, and then appreciate you afterwards. So you get info dumps. It's kinda the immediate vs. delayed gratification thing.
But since webnovels are intended to be endless, published for weeks, months, even years if you have dedication and active fandom, there is no guarantee that reader will remember the hints from the previous chapter as they are reading far more stories that just yours. You usually don't have luxury of the conventional, traditionally published novels, where readers stick to the end and more importantly, give your story an undivided attention.

This^

 

[Zirrboy]

Strong no (4): 582 words total, 145.5 avg

Strong yes (4): 93 words total, 23.25 avg

 

[georgelee5786]

Not necessarily, but they can be useful and entertaining if done right

 

[LostLibrarian]

World-building is technically all that invisible leg-work you did behind the scenes in order to make the setting consistent, not the actual part of the story.

I mean, world-building is just anything that makes up your world. And should therefore be an integral part of the story. If your world has no relevance to the story, then you failed to create a world. The values of the characters, the possibilities of the story, the questions and solutions - all that is directly influenced by the world and - in turn - needs to be introduced.

If not, you'll end up with the other extreme of webnovels. Where you have some stupid MC from some cultivation novel doing the same things over and over again in different realms with nothing changing but some names. (Of course, if you write tolkien-standard fantasy or real world stuff, the amount of information becomes less because the reader already knows a lot of the standard).


The thing with world-building is to know what to present in your story and when. To use exposition and introduction as part of the flow of the story/action and not as stop between two points. And to know that the history of the money might not be the most important thing during the first visit of the market. But you still need to present it and often in bigger chunks as well so that the context can become clear to the reader.

The important thing is to either make the info-dump interesting enough in itself or mask/intervene it...

 

[Anon2024]

I’m surprised no one said “define info-dump.”

My definition of an info dump is any set of paragraphs that go longer than 1000 words which is devoted to background rather than plot or characters whether written in conversational form or simply explanatory.

 

[Gryphon]

Info dumps are pretty much the worst parts of any fantasy story. Now I can forgive an info dump that lasts for a few pages. If it contains crucial information that needs to be said about the world and it doesn't go on for too long, then its fine. But once the dump starts going past 5 pages, there's a problem.

You worldbuild by expositing information when necessary. You don't talk about the countries culinary arts during an epic bloodbath tournament, and you wouldn't talk about the country's cutthroat bloodsport when watching a master chef cook. Just putting everything in one big mess of a dump will mess with the pacing and bore the readers and there's no garantee the reader will remember all that sense info dumps tend to be spouted with boring and monotonous narration.

 

[LostLibrarian]

My definition of an info dump is any set of paragraphs that go longer than 100 words which is devoted to background rather than plot or characters whether written in conversational form or simply explanatory.

At that point any a bit more detailed description of the environment would become an "infodump"

 

[Anon2024]

At that point any a bit more detailed description of the environment would become an "infodump"

I missed 1 zero.

1,000 words.

 

[JHY]

I’ve noticed info dumps in more and more works (especially online) and I’m wondering if they’re required for world building.

I personally think info dumps take away the mystery of a story setting and often even the plot, characters and story itself.

Often they don’t take the reader into account. Why does the reader want to know about the world if they don’t give a damn about the plot or characters?

Even question and answer sessions are annoying because most of them feel unnatural, out of the action. It’s like someone telling you about a conversation they had instead of getting to the point of the information.

“I asked, then they said, blah blah blah.”

I mean, seriously. Info dumps are just lazy, low effort ways to tell the reader “yo foo, dis muh world and it’s important!”

-_-

Well, this is my opinion. Change my mind.

I think it’s best to avoid them as much as possible, and limit their length and find a way to splice them into narrative. Personally, I want reading a book to be an act of discovery. I don’t want to have it all explained to me.

No.
World-building is technically all that invisible leg-work you did behind the scenes in order to make the setting consistent, not the actual part of the story. (unless you are creating the homebrew setting for Table Top RPG, then the story is up to someone else)
However, many people want to show all the leg-work they had to do immediately and be appreciated for it, instead of relying on readers to go through the entire story and remember, and then appreciate you afterwards. So you get info dumps. It's kinda the immediate vs. delayed gratification thing.
But since webnovels are intended to be endless, published for weeks, months, even years if you have dedication and active fandom, there is no guarantee that reader will remember the hints from the previous chapter as they are reading far more stories that just yours. You usually don't have luxury of the conventional, traditionally published novels, where readers stick to the end and more importantly, give your story an undivided attention.

Well said.

 

[greyblob]

absolutely not.